die with a "t"

I don’t believe in diets. I don’t deny that they perform the function they’re designed to perform, only that the results are, at best transient, and at worst, detrimental to your over all physical and mental health. Despite what every celebrity doctor would have you think, our bodies are designed to derive pleasure from eating food. If they were not, our offspring would starve! Pleasure is an absolute necessity of life: otherwise, why bother remaining alive? Thinking of food as fuel and nothing else is not corrective thinking, it is WRONG thinking! 

I try to heed the words written on the cover of Omnivore’s Dilemma: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” However; it isn’t always possible to live by those three sentences. I do, however think that they absolutely represent better health advice than anything that has ever been uttered by any diet guru. My evidence may be considered circumstantial and my research merely associative but I know this: when I stick to those three sentences I feel better, and when I do not, I feel unwell.   

True, I have gained ten pounds since the beginning of the holidays on top of the extra weight I am currently carrying, but this is not about ten pounds. I need to make some changes to be more in line with the way I want to eat, and the way I want to live, than falling back into old bad habits and allowing convenience to sway my actions or thinking. 

Here’s the plan: 

In addition to making more meals which are predominantly comprised of vegetables, I’ll be having two vegetarian days a week. And since my husbands schedule means I don’t have to worry about accommodating my in-laws for part of the week, I’m going to work on a "four days on, three days off" principal. It means, I can have the treats, and heavier braised, or stewed meals that I crave on the weekends. 

The remainder of the plan is simple and even harder to achieve. I have to get to the gym, walk whenever I can, and generally make more active choices with my time. I already pay for the gym, and I’m going to start using it today.  

So, there is one addendum I would add to Mr. Poland’s elegantly simple statements: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Move.